Thirty years after the civil war ended, Lebanon still doesn’t have 24-hour electricity, functioning water and sanitation systems, or reliable rubbish collection. The administrative oppression is so large-scale, so absurd, so unfathomable, it has corroded the distance between fact and fiction, between reality and allegory – home is a dump.

It is difficult to talk about the blast without mentioning the fires, the floods, and the homes without electricity, food or water. The streets choked on teargas, the students beaten by soldiers, the protestors shot in the eyes or killed in front of their children. It is difficult to say anything without mentioning the economic crisis: the Lebanese Lira, plummeting and plummeting, and now in the ground, worth less than nothing.